A Cold Wet Week

Well this is the first post thats actually up to date on the blog, we'd been backtracking to fit in all the events that have happened up to know so please join us for the continuing epic.

It really has been a cold damp week for the time of year and neither Kevin nor I have been able to get to our Nuces to tend to them since their arrival. In fact we have both been a bit worrid since activity has died down somewhat in the wet weather - perhaps the Bee's are huddling up to keep warm in there

My hive arrived and I believe Kevin got his together, but the frustrating thing is we can’t put the Bee's into their proper home until it gets sunny and the rain stops. The bee’s seem to hate the rain and might catch a chill in the cold. Waiting like this is not good for them, but we have no choice.

Kevin took a quick look into his hive to provide a mason jar with 1:1 sugar syrup for feeding. I to took some sugar syrup to my hive, but I placed mine on a couple of wooden blocks outside the entrance - that was some poor thought on my part, and I kind of knew this at the time, but the bee's won't even come out to feed from it, its that cold and wet - When I get home from work tonight I am going to go with Kevins method of opening the top hole in the Nuc and feeding from there.

By the way, Sugar Syrup is made by mixing 1 part granulated Sugar with 1 part tap water, by weight at rooom temperature and make a mildly viscous, slightly cloudy opaque liquid. I am told that a 1:1 mixture is best to give in spring since it encourages feeding, but the Bee's don't become dependant on it over nextar flow, as they might with a 2:1 Sugar/Water mixture.

Various great Bee's recipes for feeding Bee's can be found at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Beekeeping/Recipes_for_the_Bees

I particularly like the idea of feeding hard candy towards winter... Now we are up to date I am heading home to decide on how to feed these Bee's, more updates from both me and Kevin soon.